http://www.kennethnoland.com/
It's interesting to see his progression through the decades, from circular forms and flat textures (Epigram, 1963) into angular forms (East-West, 1963) and non-square canvas (Burnt Beige, 1975), more complex textures in the 80s (Snow and Ice, 1985), and in Refresh (1999), the texture of the paint becomes a new element as well.
Personally, I like his more organic, earlier forms (Split, 1959). Epigram (1961) is captivating as well. I'm not terribly fond of his earlier angular work, but his later stuff in the 80s seems a little more interesting, less like "I'm going to experiment with plaid on a diamond canvas" and more like the idea is better developed (Gift of Reason, 1986, Doors: Time Ahead, 1989).
Refresh (1999) is...refreshing. I wouldn't like it on its own, not as a work from 1999 on its own. But in the context of its larger work, and of the traditions in which he worked (and still works), I actually rather like it.
On the technical side, using the texture of the paint itself seems to be a new element for this artist. Despite what he said in '77 about thinning paint to reveal color, this is to me a return to basics for him. Some of the work from the 80s appears to have more actual texture to it (I can't really tell if it's actual or implied), and by using the paint itself as texture in its simplest method, he is following his earlier tenets of using the minimum of technology to achieve his aims.
On the content side, the yellow paint beads are my least favorite part of the painting. The void in the center is a nice statement about Ad Reinhardt. The way the painting seems to minimalize that void, it seems to be a statement about art in general. Refresh is, in that sense, a millenial statement for the artist, a call to look past the void, to back up and see the larger picture.
His most recent works, the "Mysteries" series, I find individually disappointing, but collectively intriguing. I do hope there are more than two. :p
Monday, September 20, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Understanding Jackson Pollock
I've always liked Pollock, although I can't say I ever really understood him. I like the urgency of his style, the freedom of his method of expression. When I'm paiting, sometimes I get bogged down in detail, and I have to stop and rediscover the fun part--the "action" painting--and I'll pull out some disposable sheets of paper and do a series of "gesture drawings" with watercolor, paintings that take 5 minutes or less and let me get back into the accidental, spontaneous nature of the medium that I often over-work out of a finished product. That, to me, was always the essence of Pollock's style: he mastered the fun part, and ignored the technical mastery. His style was (to me) one in a long progression of Modern painters that separated idea from execution and elevated the idea at the cost of execution.
Now, I still think dropping cigarette butts in a painting denies some of his "no accident" claims, but I got to thinking about some conversations I had had with a friend of mine last year. We were talking about the scope of art history, and the cycles between representation and abstraction, meaning and...lack of meaning, usually in terms of 100 year cycles. We're due for a shift back into the meaningful, into the representational. Could it be that Modern/Contemporary society cannot bring itself back out of the abstract and vague, simply because it is too fractured? How could a movement catch the eye of the art world if it's not actively denying the "traditional" forms? (Then I ran across the Stuckists. I haven't read too much on them, but it looks like they're right on schedule.)
Anyway, back on topic. It was the phrase, "Modern society is fractured," that stuck with me and helped me understand Pollock a bit better in terms of modern culture:
"It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old form of the Renaissance or of any other past culture. Each age finds its own technique" (Wright 22).
Ok, that makes more sense. Pollock paintings have always reminded me a little of static on a TV, at least when viewed from a distance. Culture in this period was changing at an unprecedented rate, and I can finally see these paintings as an expression of that change. They seem to reflect a certain inability to express the overwhelming advances in technology, both the positive and the morally ambiguous, in traditional representational terms that would undoubtedly carry with them a specific value judgement.
"We are modern...because we have developed consciousness of our historical depths and trajectories, as also our historical transcendence of the traditional" (Dirks 25).
(I encountered an article that is probably closer to what I was looking for: "Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture." Unfortunately, it's not worth $30 to peruse this article, and there's no abstract available. Another interesting source: Warped Space: Art, Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture. I'm tempted to eBay this one, but it's too long of a read to pick through right now.)
But thinking of Pollock in terms of overwhelming culture, as "static," is perhaps too simplistic. Another quote he offers us in the interview:
"...today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within" (Wright 22).
From that, we can draw that these paintings are more of a psychological impression of the artist, a Rorschach of sorts, expressing the artist's subconscious. So what can we garner from these works about
Despite the lack of representation, there does seem to be an overall balance and harmony to the works. But there is also confusion, and of course abstraction. And one thing, in the context of his comment about "this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio" (Wright 22) is an opinion about any of these subjects, or any other subjects.
This brings to mind a much older ideal, and one that was perhaps persistent through the Modern period and into the Contemporary...that is, the isolation of the artist.
"There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott" (Tennyson)
Considering the period that Pollock lived through and painted through, including not only the technology he mentioned but two world wars and the beginnings of the cold war, it is at first surprising that there is no representation, no feeling that there is any connection to any events of his time. But his artwork would undoubtedly appeal even more to the audience that had lived through these events with him than they do to us today (even though they still retain their appeal). The world was changing, and changing quickly, and his paintings address a response to the overwhelming change all around without delving into any particular change. He wasn't necessarily isolated in the sense of the Lady of Shalott, but he was not a part of these changes--he was not a scientist or politician or activist, although the rapidly changing society certainly affected him. What we get from his art is a psychological portrait of the "common" man who lived during these rapid changes. In more recent times of change, this is something I can even relate to myself. I think this was best expressed by Robert Hass:
Pantoum of the Great Depression
Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don't remember all the particulars.
We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don't remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows
Thank god no one said anything in verse.
The neighbors were our only chorus,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.
But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.
And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.
Dirks, Nicholas B. "History as a Sign of the Modern." Public Culture 2.2 (1990): 25+. 10 September 2010. http://publicculture.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/2/2/25
Hass, Robert. "Pantoum of the Great Depression." 10 September 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/features/19980920.htm
Tennyson, Lord Alfred. "The Lady of Shalott." 10 September 2010. http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML
Wright, William. "Jackson Pollock: Interview with William Wright." Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Ed. Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz. Berkley: University of California Press, 1996. 22-24.
Now, I still think dropping cigarette butts in a painting denies some of his "no accident" claims, but I got to thinking about some conversations I had had with a friend of mine last year. We were talking about the scope of art history, and the cycles between representation and abstraction, meaning and...lack of meaning, usually in terms of 100 year cycles. We're due for a shift back into the meaningful, into the representational. Could it be that Modern/Contemporary society cannot bring itself back out of the abstract and vague, simply because it is too fractured? How could a movement catch the eye of the art world if it's not actively denying the "traditional" forms? (Then I ran across the Stuckists. I haven't read too much on them, but it looks like they're right on schedule.)
Anyway, back on topic. It was the phrase, "Modern society is fractured," that stuck with me and helped me understand Pollock a bit better in terms of modern culture:
"It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old form of the Renaissance or of any other past culture. Each age finds its own technique" (Wright 22).
Ok, that makes more sense. Pollock paintings have always reminded me a little of static on a TV, at least when viewed from a distance. Culture in this period was changing at an unprecedented rate, and I can finally see these paintings as an expression of that change. They seem to reflect a certain inability to express the overwhelming advances in technology, both the positive and the morally ambiguous, in traditional representational terms that would undoubtedly carry with them a specific value judgement.
"We are modern...because we have developed consciousness of our historical depths and trajectories, as also our historical transcendence of the traditional" (Dirks 25).
(I encountered an article that is probably closer to what I was looking for: "Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture." Unfortunately, it's not worth $30 to peruse this article, and there's no abstract available. Another interesting source: Warped Space: Art, Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture. I'm tempted to eBay this one, but it's too long of a read to pick through right now.)
But thinking of Pollock in terms of overwhelming culture, as "static," is perhaps too simplistic. Another quote he offers us in the interview:
"...today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within" (Wright 22).
From that, we can draw that these paintings are more of a psychological impression of the artist, a Rorschach of sorts, expressing the artist's subconscious. So what can we garner from these works about
Despite the lack of representation, there does seem to be an overall balance and harmony to the works. But there is also confusion, and of course abstraction. And one thing, in the context of his comment about "this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio" (Wright 22) is an opinion about any of these subjects, or any other subjects.
This brings to mind a much older ideal, and one that was perhaps persistent through the Modern period and into the Contemporary...that is, the isolation of the artist.
"There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott" (Tennyson)
Considering the period that Pollock lived through and painted through, including not only the technology he mentioned but two world wars and the beginnings of the cold war, it is at first surprising that there is no representation, no feeling that there is any connection to any events of his time. But his artwork would undoubtedly appeal even more to the audience that had lived through these events with him than they do to us today (even though they still retain their appeal). The world was changing, and changing quickly, and his paintings address a response to the overwhelming change all around without delving into any particular change. He wasn't necessarily isolated in the sense of the Lady of Shalott, but he was not a part of these changes--he was not a scientist or politician or activist, although the rapidly changing society certainly affected him. What we get from his art is a psychological portrait of the "common" man who lived during these rapid changes. In more recent times of change, this is something I can even relate to myself. I think this was best expressed by Robert Hass:
Pantoum of the Great Depression
Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don't remember all the particulars.
We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don't remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows
Thank god no one said anything in verse.
The neighbors were our only chorus,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.
But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.
And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.
Dirks, Nicholas B. "History as a Sign of the Modern." Public Culture 2.2 (1990): 25+. 10 September 2010. http://publicculture.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/2/2/25
Hass, Robert. "Pantoum of the Great Depression." 10 September 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/features/19980920.htm
Tennyson, Lord Alfred. "The Lady of Shalott." 10 September 2010. http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML
Wright, William. "Jackson Pollock: Interview with William Wright." Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Ed. Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz. Berkley: University of California Press, 1996. 22-24.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Jackson Pollock Video
Original video on Jackson Pollock as filmed by Hans Namuth. Very similar to the recreation by Ed Harris in the movie Pollock.
Lucio Fontana
Some interesting background on Fontana and recent Christie's Auction sale price ($2mil).
http://www.italica.rai.it/eng/principal/topics/bio/fontana.htm
http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/artists/record.html?record=4
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5101409
http://www.italica.rai.it/eng/principal/topics/bio/fontana.htm
http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/artists/record.html?record=4
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5101409
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